31 July 2023 , 22:36
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Will.i.am has opened up about the time her first realised his family was poor.
Steven Bartlett, the host of the Diary Of A CEO podcast, asked the musician if he thought he was confident. The founding member of the Black Eyed Peas said his confidence happened in stages, with one of the stages being when he found out he was poor.
"One year my teacher, Miss. Rich said you have to come to school with canned food and boxed food so we can give to the poor families," Will.i.am explained. He said he then ran home and asked his mother for food to bring in to school. She wouldn't let him take food into school, no matter how worried the young Will.i.am was that he was going to "fail" the assignment.
Will.i.am was made fun of for being poor (Getty Images)
Will.i.am said kids didn't believe he was poor because he wore suits to school (NurPhoto via Getty Images)The next day at school, while he was empty-handed, he saw the "rich white kids," as he described, walking down the hall. The kids said they were going to drop off the food for a poor family. Will.i.am decided to tag along, and to his surprise, they were dropping the food off at his house.
Will.i.am was in a state of complete shock. He remembered thinking: "That food's for us?" That's when I realised we were poor," he admitted. Will.i.am, real name William James Adams Jr., grew up in the Estrada Courts housing projects in the Boyle Heights neighbourhood of Los Angeles.
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The rapper said for the next few days he was made fun of at school, that some of the other children would taunt him saying: "William's poor. We dropped the food off at his house."
Will.i.am wanted to give to poor families, only to find out he was poor (AFP via Getty Images)But not every kid was convinced. One girl asked him how he could be poor if "he always wore suits to school." Will.i.am told Steven that his mom wouldn't send him off to school in "play clothes." She said that you go to school to learn, and you learn in church, so he should wear his church suit to school.
He said children would defend him, saying he couldn't be a poor kid if he wore suits. This gave him the confidence to dress up, to know that his clothes separated him from the "have-nots." While appearing on the podcast, Will.i.am talked about his struggles with mental health and the "hardest path" in his life.